In an age where there was broad recognition of the Christian religion and respect for the church as an institution in European culture on the one hand and immense human suffering on the other, the young German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was deeply concerned about Christianity. His concern sprung from the fact that a person who professes to be a Christian and…
Twostatues stand on either sideofthe southtransept portal of the StrasbourgCathedral, one personifying the Church in the figure of the triumphantEcclesia,the otherrepresentingJudaism as the humiliatedSynagoga.Between the two sitsKing Solomon on his throne, the sword of“Solomon’sjudgment”restingonhisknee²;above him,Jesus holds an orb,symbolizing his cosmic statusasthe arbit-er on the dayo…